Portable data carriers can be very diversely used, for example, for carrying out payment transactions, as identification documents for access control purposes, as authorization proof for using a mobile telephone system etc. Before a portable data carrier can be used in an application, it is normally required to write data into a nonvolatile memory of the portable data carrier in connection with an initialization and a subsequent personalization. With the initialization, for example, supplements of an operating system of the portable data carrier, which is stored in a permanent memory of the portable data carrier, are written into the nonvolatile memory and file structures are created. Furthermore, the subsequent personalization is prepared. During the personalization, for example, applications are installed in and personal data is written into the nonvolatile memory. The borders between initialization and personalization are not fix, so that there are the possibilities to write the data into the portable data carrier during the initialization or during the personalization. In addition, it is possible to carry out an initialization and/or personalization with a portable data carrier that is already used in order to update the operating system or the application programs, to change or add personal data, or to install new applications.
Some portable data carriers have a manual switching device by the actuation of which a data transmission being permitted. Such switching devices in particular can be provided in portable data carriers, in which the data transmission is effected in a contactless fashion, and serve to protect from unauthorized access to the portable data carrier. When the user of the portable data carrier agrees to a data transmission, he activates the transmission by manually actuating the switching device. But such a switching device leads to problems when initializing or personalizing the portable data carrier, since for this purpose a data link between an external device and the portable data carrier has to be set up and the highly automated initialization or personalization process only in exceptional circumstances will be compatible with a manual actuation of the switching device.
Therefore, the invention is based on the problem to permit the initialization and/or personalization of a portable data carrier having a switching device with a reasonable effort in an efficient fashion.